#47: “Mary” by Thomas Bradshaw
In an attempt to make my 52 books goal again this year, I’m breaking my 2011 rule: I’m reviewing the last six plays that I read this year. I know it’s not the same, but come on, I’m a playwright. This is my world, an extension of my education. So I’m sharing some of that with you all.
I picked up this play at a sidewalk sale last summer at The Studio Theatre. I had read about this play on the Goodman Theatre’s website and was interested in reading some of Thomas Bradshaw’s work. When I first read about this play, it was billed as a story about a college-aged gay couple who went to one of the young men’s parents’ house for Christmas break — a house that through some combination of magical realism and intolerance, refused to acknowledge the existence of the LGBT community. The idea that there was a house that could erase an entire community was fascinating to me.
Unfortunately, that’s not what this play was about. I just went on The Goodman’s website to read the revised plot synopsis:
At the height of what Time magazine dubbed “AIDS hysteria” in 1983, college student David invites his boyfriend home to his parents’ house in Maryland where nothing has changed since the 1800s—including the slave quarters.
That story would be interesting to me as well, if it wasn’t for the over-the-top almost cartoonish dialogue style. The play seeks to shock with it’s “big revelation” ending, but the stakes are not high enough. Well, the stakes are high, but I can’t take any of the characters seriously.
Something that struck me as very odd about this play was that it was published before the initial production. As you can see in this photo, my reaction to this was, “Does he rewrite at all in rehearsal? I would hate to have something published before the first production.”
